Reference is hereby made to co-pending U.S. patent applications, entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FAST SEARCHING OF HAND-HELD CONTACTS LISTSxe2x80x9d, attorney docket number M61.12-0225; entitled xe2x80x9cSMART COLUMN FOR CONTACT INFORMATION ON PALM-SIZED COMPUTING DEVICES AND METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DISPLAYING THE SAMExe2x80x9d, attorney docket number M61.12-0226; entitled xe2x80x9cUSER INTERFACE FOR PALM-SIZED COMPUTING DEVICES AND METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DISPLAYING THE SAMExe2x80x9d, attorney docket number M61.12-0227; entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING CONTEXT MENUS ON A PEN-BASED DEVICExe2x80x9d, attorney docket number M61.12-0228; entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING RECENT CATEGORIES ON A HAND-HELD DEVICExe2x80x9d, attorney docket number M61.12-0229.
The present invention relates to hand-held personal computing devices commonly known as hand-held devices or palm-size devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved user interface (UI) for a palm-held portable computer.
Hand-held devices are small electronic computing devices, sometimes also referred to as personal digital assistants (PDAs). Generally, these devices fit comfortably in the palm of a user""s hand. Hand-held devices have gained a niche as personal organizers, allowing users to view or change lists of contacts, tasks or calendar events on a display using an interface device such as a keyboard (typically integrated into a touch sensitive display) and a stylus.
In a hand-held device running more than one application, there is a need for improved UI mechanisms for manipulating data, for providing feedback, for controlling the applications, and for navigating between the different applications. All these peripheral UI mechanisms are needed around the actual data content of the applications. However, there is very limited screen or display real estate available for displaying both the data and the UI for the applications and/or shell program. As screen real estate is utilized for UI application functions, the amount of data which can be displayed to the user decreases accordingly. Thus, there is a need for methods of efficiently displaying application and shell program information on a limited size screen.
The present invention includes apparatus and methods for generating a user interface (UI), for a stylus based hand-held device, which maximizes screen real estate available for displaying data, and which provides a mechanism to efficiently manipulate data and to switch between application programs.
The hand-held computing device UI of the present invention displays information for an active application program in a middle portion of the screen, and displays a shell program controlled navigation bar at a top portion of the screen. The navigation bar includes a navigation icon which when tapped by the stylus aids the user in navigating to other application programs. The navigation bar also includes a title for the active application program, thus saving vertical real estate on the screen. The UI of the present invention also displays an application menu bar at a bottom portion of the screen so that the user of the hand-held device can manipulate data from the active application by tapping menu items with a stylus without blocking the view of the middle portion of the display.